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He, She, and Phe: Dorm Life at Brown: Roommates!

Hi there! I’m Seunglee Lee, a first year blogger for He, She, and Phe: Dorm Life at Brown. For nervous freshmen, including myself, nothing is more exiting yet intimidating than prospects of dorm life. As I navigate through all the fun, hectic and hilarious experiences dorm life at Brown has to offer, I hope to share them with you and hopefully convince you that Brown is the place to be.

When I first found out that Brown assigns roommates randomly, I was a little terrified. My high school friends were already talking to theirs. Some had even met them. Meanwhile, I had to wait until beginning of August to even know who mine was.

Turns out I didn’t have to fret so much about that roommate survey we had to fill out in the beginning of summer. Neither was it necessary to agonize about my assignment as if I was waiting for the apocalypse. It’s simply not that bad, including for almost everyone I talked to.

Of course, that doesn’t mean all roommates are going to be BFFs for life, although it certainly can happen. A lot of them are good friends, even if they have different friend groups. Whether friends or mere acquaintances, most roommates respect each other’s privacy and have no problem with sharing a room. Brown does allow roommate change requests but only after a certain period of time and for a serious reason.

Now some people have singles, but since I share a double I cannot say much about it. From what I hear, a single has its pros and cons just like a double. You have a lot more privacy, but it can feel lonelier.

When I found out that my roommate and I were both internationals, I was excited we would have a common ground. We could share the perks and agonies of being an international student, including the nervewrecking paperwork (Visa, I-20, SEVIS, I still can’t get them straight). I was worried, however, that we would be trapped inside the international bubble.

Turns out my predictions were quite wrong. It is impossible to group international students into one big category. Everyone comes from such different places and backgrounds that you naturally become exposed to so many parts of the world you were unaware of. My roommate, in fact, is Indian but lived in all different parts of the world, including Singapore and Canada.

My roommate and I are in that “good friends” category. We still have friend groups of our own but we hang out both in and outside of our rooms. (Her newly developed obsession with ramen and Korean food says a lot about our relationship)

Besides the fact that we are both internationals, we don’t have that much in common. We come from different countries and speak different languages (Other than English, of course). Spandy is a CS major currently drowning in CS15 homework — she calls the CIT (Center for Information Technology) her second home — and I am still undecided but leaning toward IR or economics. She swims, and I can’t play s

ports for my life.

But the fact that we are different brings us together more. It gives us a chance to learn about areas we didn’t know about. We have fascinating conversations about politics and social inequality in India and Korea. On the other hand, we love being silly to each other. Here’s a picture to prove my point.

See you next week,

Seunglee

Do you have any questions or comments? Shoot me an email at seung_lee_lee@brown.edu and I’ll get back to you!